Sunday, November 9, 2008

Rhode Island and back into Massachusetts

After 3 nights and another full day we headed out of Cape Cod to pay a visit to the smallest of the 50 states, Rhode Island. Is Hawaii bigger? (Editorial comment: just checked and Rhode Island is the smallest followed closely by Delaware. Hawaii is actually 4th just ahead of the 2 littles and Connecticut.) We plan to touch all 48 states and RI would be an easy one to miss if we weren’t navigating correctly. Speaking of islands... why is it called Rhode Island anyway? It not even an island. Interstingly enough, if you look in the US Constitution the official name of Rhode Island is "State of Rhode Island and Providence." In the 1600s the Rhode Island mainland was called Providence Plantations, and the largest Island of the six other islands of Rhode Island was called Rhode Island. Interesting huh?

In the afternoon we found diesel for $3.39 per gallon! The cheapest we’ve paid since we’ve started this journey. I was feeling pretty good about this especially seeing $3.89 signs just a couple blocks away. Thanks again www.gasbuddy.com. Still no matter what the price is, it hurts watching the gallons registering 96… 97… 98+ gls. It is a big drop from the $5.04 per gallon we paid in Quebec though. We hit a food court in a mall for dinner, bought Sterling a New England Patriots football to add to his collection, then beelined toward our accommodation for the night. I decided to stay at the “W” “M” in an effort to accumulate some more points to help us qualify for their top-tier Platinum level. This WM was in Providence, Rhode Island near the Capitol building and came with free music until 2 am courtesy of a local nightclub across the street.

In the morning I perused one of Cindi’s favorite sites, www.traveladvisor.com to find out what not to miss in the area. Sorry Providence lovers, but nothing interesting really came up. So we looped around their Capitol and headed to a truck wash for a much needed shower for (insert your favorite female name here. We still haven’t arrived at a name for our motorcoach). Well, bummer. This place wanted $85 bucks to wash her, not even including our pull car. Sometimes I’m too chea--U turn. That’s enough of the little state.

With the cold weather comes the upcoming closure of the “Six Flag – More Fun” Amusement Parks. Fortunately for us Halloween is approaching and they open up on October weekends to lure people in one last time for their “Fright Fest.” When we bought our annual passes at the beginning of 2008 we scouted out all the parks in the US. There was one in Springfield, MA that wanted us to visit so I found another Jellystone Yogi Bear RV Park not too far away and decided to plant it again for another 3 night stay. We arrived on a Friday around noon to a ghost town but after a few hours the park was livening up with people. Some passing through, like us, and others who rent a site for, I guess, the whole season. Since Six Flags was open Friday night at 5 we decided to head over and check it out. Lines were not too bad but the kids weren't too excited about the “hot zone” areas in the park where it got a little scary, so we hit a few rides then bailed.
On Saturday we hung around the RV park and joined some of the activities including: hayride with Yogi (Peyton drew him a picture later and hand delivered it to him personally), bingo (Tanner and Sterling played--no winners today), and outdoor Olympic Games (Peyton and I were the only ones to show up but we had fun anyway playing racing games and Simon-says. That evening we watched USC win another football game to top off a another great day.

On Sunday we headed over to Six Flags again to hit the good rides. My favorite was Superman, which has been rated the best steel rollercoaster in the US for 4 straight years. The wait was bad but the ride was good. Peyton, one of our family’s “ride-on-anything” daredevils, was disappointed that his 50" height wasn’t quite high enough. That is the only thing that stopped him. We walked and rode and walked and rode but the long lines (thanks to a Diabetes Walk in the parking lot before the park opened) and the night fall approaching were enough to cause us to exit a bit early. We all had a great time though. Outings to Six Flags remains one of our cheapest days thanks to the annual passes. We all are missing mommy though.

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